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Anselm has been a dear friend for a long time. We first met at a small reading in an upstairs room above Trinity Street in Cambridge in the winter of 1963-1964. During my wandering scholar days he and his first wife Josie and family hosted me overnight at their flat in London more than once, and I was always grateful for that congenial shelter from the city streets. For many years Anselm shared his poems with me regularly, and, again with gratitude, I published these where I could -- in my Once Series of mimeo magazines, and in the Paris Review. See e.g. the latter publication's issues #45 and #52 (whence this poem comes).

Since that time we've both been on several planes, had several lives; but then, in another way, maybe it's all just the one life, all the time, until it's not.

Thinking about Anselm here on a winter night in the haunted house with a bite of frost in the air, his native Helsinki seems not so far away.

But then again, really, to have many lives...?

It may be good, opined Sir Thomas Wyatt (though on a somewhat different if equally recursive topic).

Or then yet again, maybe just the one was enough, or possibly even more than enough, after all.

This morning I was born again and a light shines on my landI no longer look for heaven in your deathly distant landI do not want your pearly gates don’t want your streets of goldThis morning I was born again and a light shines on my soul

This morning I was born again, I was born again completeI stood up above my troubles and I stand on my two feetMy hand it feels unlimited, my body feels like the skyI feel at home in the universe where yonder planets fly

This morning I was born again, my past is dead and goneThis great eternal moment is my great eternal dawnEach drop of blood within me, each breath of life I breatheIs united with these mountains and the mountains with the seas

I feel the sun upon me, its rays crawl through my skinI breathe the life of Jesus and old John Henry inI give myself, my heart, my soul to give some friend a handThis morning I was born again, I am in the promised land

This morning I was born again and a light shines on my landI no longer look for heaven in your deathly distant landI do not want your pearly gates don’t want your streets of goldAnd I do not want your mansion for my heart is never cold.

And yes also -- frozen appendages in the haunted-house wing of the Old Soldiers' Home -- hard mean little frost over this side of the hill, this morning.

Though city lights shone like jewels in the night, an unreal clarity, no haze for once, worth a crippled man's climb merely to see them.

Yours must be the last long board still upright.

say in the sense that it istemporal, all that it

means...

And by the by, "this morning we are born again" has gained a certain notoriety by allegedly being a fake Buddha quote. But no, it's a REAL fake Buddha quote. Or wait -- they've attributed it to the golden Buddha, Anselm!

Thanks for sharing this and your memories of first encountering Anselm. I too haven't seen him as much or been in touch the way we once were, or Josie either, but the older I get the more room there is in my heart for all I've known and loved no matter how distantly.